Police move to new home base

By Skana Gee - The Weekly News
Dartmouth cops are trading one industrial park for another.
The Halifax Regional Police East Division (Dartmouth) community office moved last week to new digs in Burnside Industrial Park, vacating its long-time home at 21 Mount Hope Ave. in Woodside Industrial Park.
Metro's police force has "collapsed" several leases across its coverage area, moving those departments under one new roof at 7 Mellor Ave., explains Supt. Stephen Sykes.
The number of East Division staff members is about 100, including patrol officers, management and support staff.
Other related services moving to the new site - known as Wright Place since it's just off Wright Avenue, one of the park's main arteries - include community relations and crime prevention, victim services, animal control, bylaw enforcement, Youth LIVE, taxi licensing, school crossing guards and parks and parking control.
Capital District Health Authority also occupies part of the brand new building, says Sykes.
It's a cost-saving measure, but also one aimed at improving "synergy" amongst service providers, says Sykes, who joined the then-Dartmouth Police Department in 1974.
The former Dartmouth police station on Mount Hope opened in 1992, becoming East Division after municipal amalgamation in 1996.
It was named in honour of Cpl. Eric Spicer, who was killed in the line of duty on Dec. 23, 1975 at the age of 28.
The vacated space is being taken over by the Emergency Management Office, which already has offices in the building.
The move will likely go all but unnoticed by the general public, says Sykes. That's because patrols will continue as they always have - the station is simply a home base.
"There's still an East Division," he told The Weekly News. "We're driven by calls for service … officers don't respond from here."
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